Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 33 of 103

PHOTOGRAPHY BY GRUMPY
VOL. 50 ISSUE 40 OCTOBER 8, 2013
After spending most of 2013
recovering from a broken femur,
Gordon Ward was back in action
at the Ridgecrest Big 6 GP.
day morning's Vet class ahead of
JCR Honda's Timmy Weigand,
who admitted he was using the
race as "practice" for that afternoon's West Coast Grand Prix.
Weigand's method paid off, as
he went on to take a hard-fought
win in the hour and a half West
Coast GP (which was more like
two hours). He bested hometown racer Ryan Abbatoye and
third-place finisher Justin Seeds
to cash in on the $2000 purse.
On Sunday it was again Gordon Ward out front, this time in
the Senior class. Ward enjoyed
a runaway victory, leaving Paul
Krause and David Glass to battle
for runner-up honors in the Senior
Heavyweight Expert class. American Beta's Nick Burson blasted to
the final big win of the weekend by
dominating the Heavyweight Expert class on Sunday afternoon.
Burson piloted his two-stroke
300RR to a convincing victory
ahead of young motocross phenom Trevor Stewart and 3 Brothers KTM-backed Nick Stover.
Husqvarna's Jamie Lanza finished
fourth overall, continuing his win
streak in the Lightweight II (125cc)
division.
Jean Turner
BYRNE, LOWES BATTLE AGAIN
H
eading into the second to
last race weekend of the
British Superbike Championship at Silverstone, Shane
Byrne led his series rival Alex
Lowes by one point. After leaving Silverstone, Byrne still leads
Lowes by a single point.
Although there was no shift in
the championship picture, fans
were again treated to a fierce
battle between the pair with
the first race going to Lowes by
.094 of a second and the second race going to Byrne in a
photo finish of .012 of a second.
For Byrne, it was his first victory since Oulton Park in August
and he was able to fight for it despite being beat up from a free
practice highside before qualify-
ing.
"A great race like that is what
we love," Byrne said about the
photo-finish victory. "I wasn't
disappointed after the first race,
but to reverse it on the last corner like that was just fantastic,
especially after the weekend
we have had."
Lowes concurred and is looking forward to the final showdown for the championship in a
few weeks at Brands Hatch.
"It was a close race and we
missed out by so little at the
end," Lowes said. "Brands
Hatch is another story and we
will see who wins the title there
and if we have more races like
today it is going to be awesome."
P35
Rounding out the podium in
both races was Josh Water's
replacement on the Milwaukee
Yamaha, Tommy Bridewell.
Bridewell's teammate James
Ellison, who is third in the title
chase, fought valiantly from
a poor sixth row grid spot – a
result of a qualifying crash – to
finish fifth and fourth in the two
races, respectively.
American PJ Jacobsen took
his podium momentum from
Assen to get his first front row
qualifying effort in third. Jacobsen was picked off by Bridewell
in race one and finished fourth.
In race two he battled with his
teammate Josh Brookes before
settling for sixth.